1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, for example, to a small-sized vehicle such as a passenger golf cart, and more particularly, to an improvement in an article housing device such as a cup holder.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a golf cart is structured so that a driver drives the golf cart by steering a steering wheel in straight ahead, rightward or leftward directions while seated on a seat. Such a golf cart is generally equipped with a cup holder to hold a bottle, a cup and so forth having drinking water or other beverages or liquids contained therein.
As an above-mentioned cup holder, there is one proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,170,787B1 that arranges two cup holders in a vehicle lateral direction in a dashboard disposed in front of the seat.
However, when a cup holder is arranged in a dashboard, a vehicle occupant has trouble reaching a cup or the like located in the cup holder when the occupant is still seated on the seat because the occupant is forced to insert and remove the cup to and from the cup holder by stooping his/her head, requiring an improvement in usability. Further, in the above-described arrangement of aligned cup holders in the vehicle lateral direction in a row, another problem is that it is impossible to have enough space for the number of cup holders in accordance with the number of occupants.
Another problem is that, when drinking water or the like spills out from the cup due to a rough road or terrain, the drinking water or the like drops down from the hole of the bottom wall of the cup holder to a vehicle floor on which the occupant places his/her foot to thereby contact and dampen the foot or a shoe of the occupant.